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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656141">stubborn heirs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleepblorp/pseuds/bleepblorp'>bleepblorp</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dramatic Irony, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:00:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>789</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656141</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleepblorp/pseuds/bleepblorp</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Evan is not in the habit of taking calls from his family, and this is just a reminder of why.</i>
</p><p>Evan Lukas mourns Gerard Keay. Naomi Herne doesn't know how to help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gerard Keay/Evan Lukas, Naomi Herne/Evan Lukas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>stubborn heirs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so obviously this was pretty thoroughly jossed by peter's statement but the idea of gerard and evan knowing each other as kids since they both grew up in supernatural "dynasties" and getting along bc they both rejected that to a certain extent and they were both so LONELY would not leave me alone</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Evan is not in the habit of taking calls from his family, and this is just a reminder of why.</p><p>He does wonder if he would have heard about Gerry from anyone else, and if it would have felt different. He knows why Peter wanted him to hear it from him. It was in the way he said it, the tone, downright gentle by Peter’s standards but with the ever-present awful cheer. It’s a reminder.</p><p>“I always rather liked Gerard. It’s too bad you two never worked out.”</p><p>Everyone else is temporary.</p><p>Naomi is next.</p><p>“Such a tragedy to die so far from home, too.”</p><p>Every<em>thing</em> else is temporary.</p><p><em>You </em>are next.</p><p>Nowhere is far enough away to run.</p><p>Naomi has noticed. She doesn’t know how to approach it yet, she has never seen Evan like this. Grieving, <em>alone. </em>Evan doesn’t know how to approach this either. Doesn’t know how to deal with the secrets, how to tell her that he’s grieving an ex without making it sound like Gerry was just an ex, how to tell her that his only other relationship that mattered was with a man.</p><p>It has always felt like Naomi has known him to his very core, that talking about little things like family and history and sexuality has always seemed so unnecessary. So he never did. Told her his family was religious and she had understood, not in the sense she had known about the Lukases or the Lonely or any of it, but in a much more real sense in that she had known what it did to him and why he couldn’t talk about it. That’s all that mattered.</p><p>He always hoped telling her about Gerry would be similar. He could say he loved a boy and she would just get it. She would understand why his family had never been able to abide that, why the boy hadn’t chosen him in the end, why Evan ran as far as he could, without having to explain Mary Keay or her murder or the fact that just because he had once loved this boy with his whole heart didn’t mean he loved Naomi any less.</p><p>He loved a boy who wouldn’t run away with him and now that boy is dead.</p><p>Cancer. That, at least, requires no explanation.</p><p>The mundanity of Gerry’s death must frustrate Peter. Using something as awful and unavoidable as a brain tumor as a threat does not quite pack the punch he must have been hoping for. Like threatening Evan with a heart attack.</p><p>It all comes to a head one morning in bed.</p><p>He’s staring. He knows, and notices the moment she wakes up, even if she doesn’t open her eyes.</p><p>“You don’t have to tell me about it,” she says, eyes still closed, bare shoulder peeking over the covers. “But please tell me if I can help.”</p><p>She falls completely silent after that, breathing even. It would be very easy to pretend she was still asleep.</p><p>He hasn’t been sleeping, the anxiety keeping him vigilant even when he knows his family had nothing to do with Gerry’s death, Peter’s cheery warnings inside sincere condolences keep bouncing around his skull. So he watches instead.</p><p>“I’ve only been in love once before.” His voice is quiet, not quite enough to wake Naomi if she had been sleeping. Plausible deniability. “And now he’s dead.”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>“And part of me can’t stop thinking about him, but most of me is thinking about losing you.”</p><p>Naomi let out a shaky breath, still not facing him. “You won’t.”</p><p>“You don’t know that. The world is dangerous and you can still lose people to something like cancer.”</p><p>Still turned away, she reaches back and gropes for him. He takes her hand in his.</p><p>It is easy to read Naomi’s silences, she expresses herself with her whole body and rarely really needs words to do so.</p><p>He knows that she really doesn’t know how to reassure him, that, yes, obviously he could lose her at any time, but that would be true even if he had the normal type of fucked up family.</p><p>Fucking. Cancer. It doesn’t feel real.</p><p>She finally turns over to look up at him, and uses their linked hands to pull him down beside her. Once she has him where she wants him, she curls herself around him, a warm, soft, blanketing pressure.</p><p>She places her lips against his neck and mumbles: “I’m marrying you, which means if you do lose me it won’t be across the world. I will be right here until the end.”</p><p>Evan Lukas breathes deep and closes his eyes, tethering himself to Naomi’s heartbeat and soft mouth against his pulse.</p><p>“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tma timeline who??</p></blockquote></div></div>
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